Gaming Dominates July's Spotlight on Social Video

Video has become one of the most popular forms of online entertainment. According to eMarketer 75% of internet users now watch video content at least once per month. Brands have been quick to follow the trend, producing more and more online video for viewers to watch, like and share. But what branded content are users actually watching? Each month the Ebuzzing Lab tracks thousands of online videos to find out which sectors are producing the best video content and which brand is unlocking viral video's potential.

July in numbers

In July over 12,000 videos were produced by more than 1,000 brands. The top 10 viral videos were watched just under 50 million times.

Top Sectors

Technology

Once again technology features in our sector analysis. The sheer volume of videos published by tech companies is impressive, over 18% of all branded videos released in July belong to the technology sector. Just as impressively, technology places third with 11% in terms of number of video views, this figure shows that not only are the tech industry producing high volumes of videos, they're also high quality. This is reinforced by the fact the technology sector failed to place a video in the top ten, suggesting that the videos were all of a similar standard rather than being bolstered by one strong contribution.

Entertainment

The entertainment sector performed differently to technology. While 8% of all videos released came from the entertainment industry, Dreamworks supported the sector by producing two videos which reached the top ten, how to train your dragon 2 and Turbo, meaning entertainment took 12% of share of views. Entertainment also claimed 14.4% of all Facebook interactions, again reinforced by how to train your dragon 2 which was liked over 344,000 times on the social networking site. Entertainment produced a fairly high volume of videos but was supported by the videos from Dreamworks.

Gaming

The gaming sector took a different route to success. Only 5% of all videos were produced by gaming brands yet gaming took over 20% of the share of video views, beating all other sectors. The excellent performance was due to releases by Rockstar Games and Rovio Mobile which were viewed over 20 million times, with Rockstar Games' footage from Grand Theft Auto V taking the number one spot. In gaming's case the sector was supported by one video, suggesting that other videos were not particularly successful.

Top Brands

Rockstar Games

As mentioned above Rockstar Games produced July’s top viral video with over 18 million views in July and featured gameplay from GTA V. The video advertised the launch of the next game in the Grand Theft Auto series which is due for release in September.

Sony

Although Sony did not produce a video in the top 10 this month the brand is worthy of a place in July’s top brands. Sony released 1% of all branded videos in July, taking 2.4% of all share of views and 1.8% of all Facebook interactions and is the only brand to feature in all three of these metrics. The relatively high Facebook interaction rate suggests their videos this month triggered high levels of engagement despite not attracting many views.

Honda

Honda’s video Honda Hands came 5th in July’s video buzz chart, attracting almost 4.5 million views. Honda accounted for 3.3% of all videos viewed and took an impressive 10% of all Facebook interactions. This shows that Honda’s videos were not only highly watchable but also engaging, the key to a successful viral video.